North2015

Specialising in the design and manufacture of protective packaging, MSA Foams, part of the Peli Group, produces foams that protect components or delicate equipment. Designing foam inserts that are cut to size for individual tool kits has been part of the business for over 20 years. The company is delighted to have been chosen to provide tool control for the Bloodhound SSC supersonic car engineering project. The vital tools for this record breaking attempt on the world land speed record are stored and transported in foam from MSA.

There is a wide range of returnable packaging and protective/presentation cases available. The sales presentation cases have a professional finish, with branding enhanced through corporate colours. Logos can also be laser-engraved with intricate detail in the foam.

The stand at this year’s Northern Manufacturing show showcases the various colours and foam densities available. The in-house design team has created the stand to demonstrate the product range, the design service and manufacturing capabilities to exhibition visitors. The separate panels interlock neatly using jigsaw tabs for the visible joints of the wall’s panels, showing the precision of the foam cutting and finish, in addition to strengthening the connection between the stand panels.

Many features of the stand, such as a complex water-jet cut map of the UK, showing the areas of the business development team, to the laser engraved, precision-cut Aztec design, demonstrate the cutting technology at the 31,000 sq ft facility.

An innovative, intelligent liquid cooling system, HydroSink, which aims to replace existing air cooled systems is one of the most recent developments that can be seen on the Aavid Thermalloy stand at Southern Manufacturing 2016.

Other innovations are the High Density Die Casting (HDDC), a process developed by the company together with its university partners to manufacture near net shape parts with better mechanical and thermal properties, compared to traditional die castings.

High fin ratio heat sinks provide increased efficiency for high power applications by creating a greater volumetric surface area. They can be employed in custom solutions where natural convection is the only chance to cool the system and a traditional extrusion cannot match the requirements.

The thermal management provider has local design centres, global manufacturing facilities and professional sales support locally and offers cooling solutions from the smallest board level cooling to several thousand kW industrial applications. They are used in a variety of applications from PCs to servers, broadcasting, instrumentation, medical devices, UPS, transportation, industrial applications and renewable energy.

There is also a quick and creative prototyping service to help bridge the gap between theoretical design and the fabrication of models.

BitBox invites visitors to Southern Electronics to talk to its engineers about the gains and pains of using Arduino or Raspberry-Pi to develop a successful commercial product.

New and exciting dev-kits can help to quickly prototype a new electronics design, but beyond proving a concept, new life-cycle factors come into play, and the company believes it can offer some handy tips to help. BitBox has decades of proven embedded design experience, and hundreds-of-thousands of reliable, UK manufactured ARM-core commercial products to its name, employing industry-proven interfaces, connectivity and the very latest wireless and power-management technologies.

BitBox has helpful tips for your development project, as well as free, no-obligation design clinics specifically designed to help new products take shape:

With BitBox you own the tools and libraries to evolve and maintain profitable products over many years of commercial growth. Visitors are also invited to free, no-obligation design clinics specifically designed to help new products take shape:

Meet BitBox at Southern Electronics Stand L73 or visit www.bitbox.co.uk for more information.

Highlighting products from three motion providers, Delta Line will showcase brushless motors, ironless motors and encoders and intelligent motors from Fulling, Portescap and Nanotec at Southern Manufacturing 2016.

Products to be shown will include a full range of ironless DC motors, disc magnet, hybrid and permanent magnet stepper motors, digital linear actuators, BLDC slotted and slot-less motors, spur, planetary and custom gearbox solutions, as well as drivers for both BLDC and stepper motors.

Fulling will launch a range of low cost and high torque brushless motors; Portescap’s new range of high power density DC ironless motors and its new M Sense B magnetic encoder will be show, together with four new drives from Nanotec, including CANopen drives and two additions to the Plug & Drive intelligent motors.

See Delta Line on Stand N61 at Southern Manufacturing 2016 or find out more at www.delta-line.com

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Southern Manufacturing exhibitor York EMC Services (YES) has been providing regulatory assurance services to industry since 1995. It was established as a wholly-owned subsidiary company of the University of York. Its remit was to provide commercial EMC services to industry, which was anticipating the EMC Directive.

CEO Nick Wainwright, joined in 1995 and observes: “In 1995 . . . the EMC Directive was not yet in force, the notion of CE Marking was still in its infancy and YES operated a tiny laboratory on the University of York campus. [Now], the third edition of the EMC Directive is on its way, CE Marking is firmly established and YES operates from three UKAS-accredited laboratories across the UK, as well as delivering its training, consultancy and test instrumentation from its head office in York. However, whilst much has changed, the core values of quality, value and service remain an essential part of our DNA and will continue to do so.”

Today, YES provides UKAS accredited testing and in-depth technical consultancy, to training and test instrumentation which can be found in EMC laboratories worldwide. All products and services are designed to enable customers to meet regulatory compliance obligations in a straightforward and cost-effective manner.

Timsons Engineering has launched a mechanical and electrical fitting service, enhancing its profile as a “one-stop-shop” for subcontract engineering. The new services complement the firm’s existing foundry and machining services, offered as a complete supply or individually, and supply machined fabrications and the machining of free issue components.

The fitting service has an area of over 2700 sq m, crane capacity of 30 tonnes with under hook height up to 4.7m and an experienced team to fit both simple and complex assemblies of supplied components.

The company holds accreditation to ISO9001:2008. It operates a 100% inspection regime for all components with full inspection reports provided on request.

The foundry facility has two modern induction furnaces designed to produce high quality castings in small to medium batch quantities. Machining services use vertical machining centres, horizontal and vertical lathes, twin pallet horizontal borer and other large milling and turning machine tools.

Among the hundreds of fastening solutions showcased on the TR fastenings stand at Northern 2015 were self-clinch and hank sheet metal fastenings, plastics hardware, cable management, pillars, spacers, brass inserts, micro fasteners, security screws, and thread-forming screws for plastics and metal applications. And as if that wasn’t already comprehensive enough, visitors were also able to discuss custom made-to-order solutions.

The Manchester-based firm sources and manages a variety of products and CAT C items, supplies fastenings to the electronics, automotive, medical and sheet metal industries with enclosure products, as well as screws and plastic caps and inserts for furniture. As one of Europe’s largest providers of Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) solutions, it can design and implement specific supply systems that save customers time and money.

Showcased on the Labfacility stand at Northern Manufacturing & Electronics 2015 was the L300 multi-function temperature monitor, which provides 8-channel measurement and logging with 8 relay outputs for alarm or control switching.

The 8 independent relay outputs are fully configurable for total versatility and provide 10A/ 250V changeover contacts. Output modes include high, low and band alarm and on-off control. Hysteresis and band values are user set. The L300 can be used in conjunction with a PC to provide accurate, versatile 8 channel temperature measurement, scanning and logging of measured values. It can also be used as a “stand alone” 8-channel indicator / logger and incorporates a digital display of measured temperature.

The self-calibration facility for the thermocouple version is a rapid and convenient method for on-site calibration and does not require any additional equipment other than a special, external link which is provided with the instrument. Self-calibration of Pt100 ranges is equally simple and uses plug-in precision resistors.

Labfacility says that the L300 is designed to provide exceptional stability with high measurement resolution and represents an ideal crossover between plant practicality and laboratory performance at a very competitive price.

The Trumpf stand at Northern 2015 created a lot of attention from visitors thanks to live demonstrations of its TruBend press brake and CNC punch machine, TruPunch 2000. The latter in particular attracted admiring comments from visitors, such as Constant Manufacturing, which commented on its blog, that the machine would have “…Certainly got the visitors attention as most would have heard the punch before they saw the beaut in action!” The punch press was introduced to the UK earlier this year, and, says Trumpf, demonstrates how automatic production can be economical, even when operated at low capacity. The press can be supplied as a standalone machine or with SheetMaster Compact automation.

Demonstrated for the first time in the UK at the show was Trumpf’s TruTops Boost software. Combining production machinery expertise and software, it allows users to work with automation, or interactively, or a combination of both. Also on the stand was a TruBend 3066, a space-saving model with automatic crowning to ensure consistent angles, and high axis speeds. Completing the line up, laser marking was demonstrated,with the TruMark Station 3000 and TruMark 5010 laser, together with details of the TruServices programme and the TruTool range of portable fabrication tools available to try.

Following a successful show in 2014, Schnelldorfer Maschinenbau returned to Northern Manufacturing with high hopes – hopes which were realised just three hours after the doors opened on the first day, with an order for its ELENA 1100 – II TIG seam welder. Demonstrated live at Northern Manufacturing 2015, the welding system can weld tubes with length up to 1,000mm and diameter down to 60mm. The ELENA longitudinal seam welders weld longitudinal seams on metallic components. Most models feature PLC-based industrial controls, including program storage and remote diagnostics.

Speaking at the show, a clearly delighted David Coaster, Business Development Manager, commented “We are very happy with the show. We will be coming back next year.”

Visitors to Schnelldorfer stand saw a range of precision rotary welding systems and a multi-axis TIG lathe-type system, including its Cornerweld machines which combine precise clamping technology, cooling and shielding gas supply with advanced controls to ensure repeatable production of corner welded seams without discoloration. The firm also took the opportunity to introduce its new range of ROTAWELD precision lathe-type circumferential welding systems. A multi axis TIG system was demonstrated live and strong interest and comments of approval were made about the equipment’s innovative features and class leading quality.

Schnelldorfer praised Northern Manufacturing as a well-organised show, which generated high-quality enquiries from knowledgeable clients who have a serious interest in purchasing new equipment.